The founder of Wawatay Catering spent her childhood as a prep cook, though she didn’t realize it at the time.

“When I was young I helped prepare our seasonal feast which is about two to three times a year,” says Marie-Cécile Nottaway, whose Indigenous catering company is based in the Kitigan Zibi Algonquin First Nation near Maniwaki, Quebec.

That was the way of things in her community, Nottaway says — women prepared the meal, children helped: peeling potatoes and carrots, cutting up meat and onions, making the tea, setting up the tables. “That was your job, you had no choice,” she says.